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Topic: leoparding (Read 25837 times)

How can we explain leoparding in same day doughs with caputo & warm rise. I don't have consistant results, but then I need to document my findings better. I believe hydration is also a big factor. I'll keep reading & learning Thanks everyone !!!

Thanks for the compliment JConk007. I hope I'm capturing flavor also...only a trip to Naples would confirm it though

JimmyMak, I have not tried a same day dough with warm rise but I believe the reason behind your inconsistent results is the varying temperature where you leave the dough to ferment from bake to bake. Assuming everything else is constant. The higher the temperature, the more fermentation; thus resulting in more leoparding. Of course the lower the temperature, the less you get. I would start on making the temperature consistent and go from there.

my dough is always room temp rise.... i did a couple of fridge doughs.... but mostly room temp.... i find that the less starter a put in the dough and the longer the fermentation and rise is the better the leoparding is... and the leoparding was better with the italian flour.... but ive got some spots with the AP (Brazilian) too...

Still need to play around the settings (what a pain!), but here is an HD video that shows one of the pies baking. You should only try to view this if you have a high-speed connection - it's 27MB. Expand to full-screen for full effect.

Bill/SFNM

Nice one Bill! Poetry in motion. Re original post, I get good leoparding mostly on older doughs.

I ran across an interesting explanation for blistering on bread which I assume is akin to leoparding on Neapolitan pizza.

The assertion is that blisters are caused by the exterior dough cells losing gas faster than it is generated. Many collapse except for scattered ones which then accumulate water from the crust when baked to generate the blister.

This explanation is consistent with the observations that only well-fermented doughs leopard as those doughs would be generating less gas and their cell walls would be weakening.

With the cooler weather in Dallas now, I have been having a great time making dough - and getting some great leoparding. Of course I have no pictures...but will take some at our next event. Temperature seems to be the biggest factor for me achieving normal or ridonkulous leoparding. I get good spots with 24 hr cold ferment, great spots with 48 hr cold ferment, and I've even stretched the fermenting process up to 5 days or so. Usually after an event I will have some left over dough balls. The next day I will take them out and re-ball them and put them back in the fridge for several days - they've been great...lots of spots, very light, good flavor. I could never pull this off in the Dallas summer.

Water goes in first, then salt goes in...mixed with a whisk to dissolve, then fresh yeast gets crumbled in...mixed with a whisk to dissolve, then half the flour and mix til it looks like pancake batter...then autolyse...then the rest of the flour. windowpaning is incredible too.

No lag team between salt and yeast...just one after the other. That's the way they showed me how to make it at Antica...

Here is a picture from the summer of me stretching a 9 oz dougball just to see how thin I could get it...

Water goes in first, then salt goes in...mixed with a whisk to dissolve, then fresh yeast gets crumbled in...mixed with a whisk to dissolve, then half the flour and mix til it looks like pancake batter...then autolyse...then the rest of the flour. windowpaning is incredible too.

No lag team between salt and yeast...just one after the other. That's the way they showed me how to make it at Antica...

Here is a picture from the summer of me stretching a 9 oz dougball just to see how thin I could get it...

Technically, yes. However, the term "autolyse" has also come to mean a rest period during which a slow acting natural preferment is present with the flour and water, or where a commercial yeast is present but the duration of the rest period is less than that required to start yeast fermentation. Anything else is not technically an autolyse and means fermentation is occurring along with acid production, effects of salt on gluten and enzymes (like protease), etc. As one who pays attention to these kinds of things, the term "autolyse" is now misused more than properly used. I'm afraid the cow is out of the barn on this one.

Infoodel

From my own experience, I have found no hard evidence or specific correlation between leopard spots and fermentation time other than ensuring the dough is well fermented.

<edit> I realise that the statement might be a little misleading. What I'm trying to say is that fermentation time does not directly correlate, nor is solely responsible for the incidence of leopard spots.

I had an awesome conversation this week with a master neapolitan pizza maker about leopard spots. He brought up a great point which is that here in the states most people are making pizzas with as much leoparding as possible. Apparently in naples they tend to use a dough that is much less fermented than they do here in the states, and therefore the massive leoparding is seen much less frequently. In his opinion when you get the dough to the point of being so fermented that there is extreme leoparding it is over ripe.

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Infoodel

I had an awesome conversation this week with a master neapolitan pizza maker about leopard spots. He brought up a great point which is that here in the states most people are making pizzas with as much leoparding as possible. Apparently in naples they tend to use a dough that is much less fermented than they do here in the states, and therefore the massive leoparding is seen much less frequently. In his opinion when you get the dough to the point of being so fermented that there is extreme leoparding it is over ripe.

That's a really good point Scott. From the pictures I've seen (and yes that's the closest I've got so far to Naples!) - the leopard spots on the pizzas in Napoli are present but rarely in 'pox-like' (!) proportions.

In his opinion when you get the dough to the point of being so fermented that there is extreme leoparding it is over ripe.

Great info, Scott. I would agree that less is more when it comes to leoparding. I don't aim for a specific amount of leoparding in my pies. But the ones that have the best texture and taste, IMO, have a relatively small amount of leoparding. But I don't think it is completely a matter of over-fermentation. Sometimes the pie is just overcooked.

Cool point!I was sarting to wonder if I was doing something wrong 24 hr 50-60 degree rise then ball all caputo oven t 750-800 and I just was not getting thepeoparding but the aste afte 2 days was fantastic!John

Would you predeict that "B" would have more leoparding? No. Best I could observe, all pizzas from both batches exhibited about the same amount of leoparding. So it seems probable that refrigeration arrests the process.

Would you predeict that "B" would have more leoparding? No. Best I could observe, all pizzas from both batches exhibited about the same amount of leoparding. So it seems probable that refrigeration arrests the process.

Here is a video of a pie from "B":

Bill,I think you broke the world record.....A pizza in 23 seconds flat! Keep up the good work.